he went to the window and looked out. There was the
great square with its four walls of houses, the spread of trees, still
decorated with a few dusty leaves, and the dozens of arc lights
sputtering their white radiance in between, the graceful arch, cream
white over at the entrance of Fifth Avenue.

"It's so beautiful," she exclaimed again, coming back to Eugene and
putting her arms about him. "I didn't think it would be anything as fine
as this. You're so good to me." She put up her lips and he kissed her,
pinching her cheeks. Together they walked to the kitchen, the bedroom,
the bathroom. Then after a time they blew out the candles and retired
for the night.

CHAPTER II

After the quiet of a small town, the monotony and simplicity of country
life, the dreary, reiterated weariness of teaching a country school,
this new world into which Angela was plunged seemed to her astonished
eyes to be compounded of little save beauties, curiosities and delights.
The human senses, which weary so quickly of reiterated sensory
impressions, exaggerate with equal readiness the beauty and charm of the
unaccustomed. If it is new, therefore it must be better than that which
we have had of old. The material details with which we are able to
surround ourselves seem at times to remake our point of view. If we have
been poor, wealth will seem temporarily to make us happy; when we have
been amid elements and personages discordant to our thoughts, to be put
among harmonious conditions seems, for the time being, to solve all our
woes. So little do we have that interior peace which no material
conditions can truly affect or disturb.

When Angela awoke the next morning, this studio in which she was now to
live seemed the most perfect habitation which could be devised by man.
The artistry of the arrangement of the rooms, the charm of the
conveniences--a bathroom with hot and cold water next to the bedroom; a
kitchen with an array of necessary utensils. In the rear portion of the
studio used as a dining-room a glimpse of the main studio gave her the
sense of art which dealt with nature, the beauty of the human form,
colors, tones--how different from teaching school. To her the difference
between the long, low rambling house at Blackwood with its vine
ornamented windows, its somewhat haphazard arrangement of flowers and
its great lawn, and this peculiarly compact and ornate studio apartment
looking out upon Washington Square, was all in f